“I have sought escape in the Prytania on more than one occasion, pulled by the attractions of some technicolored horrors, filmed abortions that were offenses against any criteria of taste and decency, reels and reels of perversion and blasphemy that stunned my disbelieving eyes, shocked my virginal mind, and sealed my valve.” — Ignatius J. Reilly on Hollywood movies in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy Of Dunces.

Zach,

First off, I’m a big fan. HUGE fan. I’ve seen just about everything you’ve ever been in, watched just about every episode of Between Two Ferns multiple times, and have made a point to try to catch every interview you’ve done on television, radio, podcasts and in print since you first crossed my radar years ago. It think it’s safe to say that I think you’re great.

With that said, last night, like the rest of the world, I learned about you signing on to portray Ignatius J. Reilly in a potential film adaptation of A Confederacy of Dunces. This news simultaneously filled me with both excitement and dread.

The reason I felt excitement should be obvious: I’m a fan of yours and you signing on to play one of the greatest comedic characters ever created should be reason enough for me, or anyone for that matter, to get excited. The reason I felt overcome with dread, however, is more complex and, frankly, probably a wee bit irrational. Allow me to at least attempt to explain.

Like many people, I once read something that left a profound impact on me, and A Confederacy of Dunces was that thing. Simply put, the delight it showered upon me made it the first thing that ever made me aspire to write things for a living. Therefore, I can say without hesitation that the book actually altered the course of my life.

But, believe it or not, there’s more to it than that. (I know, I know — that previous sentence sounds crazy because, after all, how can a work of fiction possibly have an impact beyond changing someone’s life for the love of God?! But please, bear with me here.)

You see, I harbor what one might characterize as a mild obsession with the book. For going on a number of years now, I’ve read it at least once a year, every year. I keep a withered, dog-eared and ridiculously highlighted copy of Dunces in the vicinity of my bed, like many do with the Bible and other books people consider holy. Additionally, I keep a surplus of copies of the book at home so I can have them handy to give to people who haven’t read it. I’d estimate that I’ve gifted Dunces to at least 100 people over the course of my life.

Further, my obsession with the book is probably exceeded only by my obsession with the man who wrote it, John Kennedy Toole. The fact that he killed himself in despair — presumably over the belief that he’d never get the book published and was thus a failure as a writer — years before Dunces was posthumously published has only served to inflame my interest in him.

In an effort to learn more about the author of the book that changed my life, I’ve read virtually everything I’ve been able to find written about Toole (Google alerts set to his name and the book’s title have been particularly helpful in recent years) including the three biographical books devoted to exploring and examining him and his life (the most recent of which is quite good, btw).

Additionally, I’ve spent hours in the Tulane University library pouring through the papers in their Toole collection. I’ve sought out the places Toole lived and frequented in New Orleans, Lafayette and New York, along with a few of the still-living people who knew him and his eccentric mother when they were alive. If that weren’t enough, for some time now I’ve been planning to travel to Puerto Rico to visit the U.S. Army base where Toole wrote most of the book, but that has yet to materialize. I did, however, recently make a pilgrimage to the site of his suicide in Mississippi.

So, yeah, like I said, I’m mildly obsessed with the book and the man who wrote it.

But here’s the thing: I’m hardly alone. Yes, there are many others like me — some more freakishly obsessed, some less — but they are out there, and they are legion. I know this because I’ve met a lot of them.

Which gets me back the sense of dread I mentioned earlier: few entities in the history of modern man have demonstrated a more prolific ability to magically turn works of genius into steaming piles of shit than the Hollywood movie-making machine has. And all of us who’ve invested considerable chunks of our lives reading, thinking, talking, researching and writing about Dunces and Toole are today concerned — understandably so, I think — that this could happen to our beloved Dunces. We’d much prefer a film adaptation never happen rather than have it tainted by some bastardized version of the original work (LOGLINE: Wacky French Quarter hot dog vendor who lives with his wino mom encounters wacky people!) hitting screens across the world.

This, my friend, is where you come in.

We — those of us whose cultish adoration and devotion to the book would probably lead to us being institutionalized in less forgiving times and places — need you to do us a favor. There’s a reason this incredible book is the rare decades-old international bestseller that’s never been made into a movie: it’s about an extraordinary person placed in extraordinary situations. And, as Harold Ramis — who himself attempted to produce a Dunces adaptation starring John Belushi — noted, such a thing is a violation of the “basic bylaws of movie comedy,” which posit that for a movie to be funny it has to involve a normal person placed in an extraordinary situation or an extraordinary person placed in a normal situation.

So, in order for a Dunces movie to ever succeed, two things are probably necessary: a perfect script and the perfect actor to play Ignatius. Presumably, a perfect script, or at least the outline for one, has already been created. Still, the movie can’t happen without your participation because there’s simply no one else out there right now who can pull off Ignatius. (Some have even suggested that it’s a role you were born to play, and I tend to agree with them.) Yes, whether you know it or not, you’re the only person with the comedic acting chops who looks the part AND can put seats in movie theaters on opening weekend with your name attached to the project, and it’ll be years before someone else comes along who fits the same criteria.

Conversely, because you’re the only person who can play Ignatius, you single-handedly possess the power to stop this movie dead in its tracks. I trust in your sensibilities enough that you’ll know if this thing is on course to be something great (I look forward to watching it with a big bucket of popcorn at the Prytania, just as Ignatius would, if so) or become the next The Scarlet Letter or something. And if that is indeed the case, I, we, ask beg this of you: kill it, and kill it with fucking fire.

As Ignatius bloviates in the book, “I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.” If any aspect of this film is not your peer, is not on your level — the script, the director, etc. — don’t mingle with it. Walk away. By doing so you’ll insure that you’ll never have to buy another drink or meal in New Orleans — the city where the book is set and where a statue of Ignatius is maintained on one of its main drags — ever again. This I promise.

Dr. Nut and Big Chief tablets,

Cajun

P.S. — At one point during my writing this, I actually had to close my computer and go for a walk because I felt as though I was on the verge of crying. LET THE THOUGHT OF MY TEARS GUIDE YOU, ZACH!

P.S. II — I have it on good account that you’re a big fan of the house-made mustard at Sylvain, Zach. I am not below using said mustard as an instrument of blackmail, FYI.

Cajun — I am right with you on everything up through visiting the different Toole/Confederacy sections of New Orleans — you are lucky you live where you do, man. I have been meaning to make a pilgrimage to the statue for years (I want to leave a box of jelly donuts at his feet). As far as I can tell, you are the only other person on the internet who recognized the ACoD cameo in the Hangover II (I sent you an e-mail about it) — do you think Zach G. had anything to do with it?

This could only cater to my interests more if it somehow also had something to do with puppies, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and marijuana. I am a hugh Zack G fan (Greeks REPRESENT …ahem, sorry) but I disagree that he’s the only person who could play Ignatius. Ever since I first read Confederacy of Dunces in 8th grade I’ve thought the best man for the job is John C. Riley. Think about it. He would be perfect.

John C. Riley is too sweet and lovable. Even his meanest, most flawed characters are just too adorable and sympathetic. Zach G has that Will Ferrell, Kenny-Powers level of bombastic self-delusion that is absolutely perfect.

The only other actor who, in my opinion, could pull it off also happens to be our best living actor: Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think he would totally become Ignatius, and wouldn’t be willing to do it with a sub-par script. Otherwise, I completely concur with your open letter (though I’m not as obsessed). Well done.

You know, I saw PSH last month in Death of a Salesman on Broadway and the thought did cross my mind. In the end, though, as great as he is, I have a hard time envisioning myself laughing at him as Ignatius as much as I was Zach G.

On another note, Hoffman was AMAZING in the play I saw. That seemed like a role he was born to play.

Many years ago, I was called in to work on the script for Confederacy. The existing script, which had already passed through several alternating layers of competency and hackdom, was a flaming pile of crap. It had devolved to the point where only Fozzy Bear could have played Ignatius convincingly. I discarded about 85% of it, and attempted to get it back within the confines of the book. I got rid of ham-handed punchlines and invented characters that were not even the requisite “composite” characters that screenwriters adapting novels must sometimes create for economy and coherence.
When I turned over my treatment to the would-be producers, I could see by the puzzled looks on their faces that they didn’t get it. As I related my work to the book, I can tell that they didn’t get IT, either. They had absolutely no concept of what the book was about, or why it was funny. Their basic idea was, “This would make a great movie, if…”
I went home, dug the original flaming piece of crap out of the garbage. I sent it back to them, with a note stating that I didn’t want my name anywhere near that wad of refuse, and suggested that they take the original screenplay, cover it with a thin but protective layer of Vaseline, and shove it directly up their asses.
It goes without saying that my career in film ended then and there.
I would like to have high hopes for this project, and I hope that the right people are finally in charge, but my own experience suggests otherwise.

Yes, I have one more suggestion…please stop…stop all that you are doing you are so incredibly unfunny. In the same league of unfunny with Adam Sandler, Will Ferrell, Conan O’Brien et.al. … just stop before you ruin the concept of this movie…

I didn’t realize so many other people were mental about this book! It’s so fucking good. I, too, have bought numerous copies to give out (not 100)(thank god for penguin paperbacks!) then I harass the reader about where they are up to so that we can discuss. I found men like it more than women. Women mostly said they had started it but they were struggling. Men roared. Well two of them did.
What about the board? Leave the board out of it!!!
It’s a goddamn masterpiece. And the authors story is so poignant. And even the forward is brilliant. So happy other people love this book so much. I think Zach could do it. I’m keen as to see someone try. It’s such an incredible book the movie would have to be partly good. Who is directing???

My uncle actually was at the University of Southwestern Louisiana at the same time as JKT and if I recall correctly was also friends with someone who either gave or received piano lessons from/to JKT. Sorry that all that is pretty vague, I only see my uncle once every few months and I’m sure he’s gotten tired of me asking about JKT.

A different part of my family in Louisiana lived really close to Walker Percy, the author of “The Moviegoer”, who helped get Toole published after his death.

I bought the Confederacy of Dunces at an Oxfam shop in Oxford for 2.99 pounds after reading through my other books. I have been laughing like a fool; I Googled the title to read about Toole. It’s heartbreaking, really, that he did not get to see that his life’s work had a rabidly appreciative audience. No film adaptation can wholly capture the wild poetry of the novel’s language, but heck, I will see any adaptation because I have come to love the characters and the novel’s ripe, rotting, crazy world. I am a female fan–I think it’s strange that people note that the novel does not have too many female fans. It’s like a combo of Southern Gothic with Marx Brothers slapstick, good bawdy humor, and the many voices just sing in the head. I love Ignatius’s writing to Myrna, Santa Battaglia (“Shake yourself, honey!”), Jones–Ooo-wee! Only a truly miraculous and ingenious team of writer-director-actors can successfully wrangle this gaudy, brilliant, brilliant gem of a novel.

About 10 years ago I thought that this llterary masterpiece was ready for the big screen. I saw this as an ideal vehicle for the Coen brothers to truly stretch their obvious talents for character development and nuance to an entitirely new level. I’m not sure that any other film makers could provide a truly substanative narrative to both the story and the vernacular that makes this novel special. If you are a fan of “Miller’s Crossing”, “Fargo”, etc., etc., you already know the kind of detailed localization and indeed “vocalization” they bring to the table. This, coupled with the material at hand, could make for a special film. On top of that, this team has the kind of goodwill (aka “f-you money”) to thumb thier nose at mainstream convention and hunt for the source of Toole’s vision without the kind of overt commerialization so common in today’s movies. Come on, Joel and Ethan, make us and this late genious proud by “gambling” on a seminal entry to real americana